Michigan Republican lawmakers have done something almost unthinkable in today's GOP: admitted the truth. In a report stemming from an eight-month inquiry into the 2020 election, the GOP-led Senate Oversight Committee said it found no evidence that supported Team Trump's claims of "widespread or systematic fraud" in the state.
“There is no evidence presented at this time to prove either significant acts of fraud or that an organized, wide-scale effort to commit fraudulent activity was perpetrated in order to subvert the will of Michigan voters,” read the report, which was released Wednesday with the support of every Republican on the committee.
No mass contingent of dead voters, no suspicious 100% precinct turnouts, no supposed ballot dump in Detroit that propelled Joe Biden to victory in the state, which he won by some 150,000 votes or three percentage points.
In a separate statement, Oversight Committee Chair state Sen. Ed McBroom said, "We must all remember: 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof' and 'claiming to find something extraordinary requires first eliminating the ordinary.'" McBroom also called Trump's claims "ludicrous" in an interview with Bridge Michigan and said there's "good reason" to believe the conspiracy pushers were "purposely defrauding people."
For instance, the "election fraud defense fund" led by attorney Matt DePerno has raised more than $321,000 on a crowdfunding page. DePerno filed a lawsuit in Antrim County that was thrown out of court last month by a GOP-appointed judge. A spokesperson for Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said her office would review the report to determine if any criminal investigations should be opened.
The report aside, the politics of 2020 remain fraught in the state. House Democratic leader Rep. Donna Lasinski told The Washington Post that she emerged from her car one morning last week at the Capitol only to be greeted by two protesters wielding assault rifles.
Some Republican lawmakers continue to push for Arizona-style “audits” in the state, pitting them against much of the state's GOP leadership. Republican Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey and GOP Rep. Ann Bollin, chairwoman of the House Elections Committee, have both said Biden won the state, and a state GOP spokesperson said the party's formal position is that it is "not interested in relitigating the past."
Party leadership is reportedly concerned that obsessing over the 2020 election will further alienate suburban voters that they steadily lost to Democrats throughout Trump's tenure.
“We need to be focused on 2022 and 2024,” Jason Rowe, the state party’s executive director, told reporters last week.
But that position hasn't stopped GOP lawmakers from pushing for new voting laws. The Post writes:
Democratic Attorney General Nessel called it a "sad package of legislation" that seeks to both restrict access to the ballot box and "circumvent the results when the results are not in their favor.” Republicans are also trying to find a workaround that would circumvent a veto by Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
In short, even as Michigan GOP lawmakers attempt to distance themselves from Trump, they’re still trying to rig elections in their favor.
“There is no evidence presented at this time to prove either significant acts of fraud or that an organized, wide-scale effort to commit fraudulent activity was perpetrated in order to subvert the will of Michigan voters,” read the report, which was released Wednesday with the support of every Republican on the committee.
No mass contingent of dead voters, no suspicious 100% precinct turnouts, no supposed ballot dump in Detroit that propelled Joe Biden to victory in the state, which he won by some 150,000 votes or three percentage points.
In a separate statement, Oversight Committee Chair state Sen. Ed McBroom said, "We must all remember: 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof' and 'claiming to find something extraordinary requires first eliminating the ordinary.'" McBroom also called Trump's claims "ludicrous" in an interview with Bridge Michigan and said there's "good reason" to believe the conspiracy pushers were "purposely defrauding people."
For instance, the "election fraud defense fund" led by attorney Matt DePerno has raised more than $321,000 on a crowdfunding page. DePerno filed a lawsuit in Antrim County that was thrown out of court last month by a GOP-appointed judge. A spokesperson for Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said her office would review the report to determine if any criminal investigations should be opened.
The report aside, the politics of 2020 remain fraught in the state. House Democratic leader Rep. Donna Lasinski told The Washington Post that she emerged from her car one morning last week at the Capitol only to be greeted by two protesters wielding assault rifles.
Some Republican lawmakers continue to push for Arizona-style “audits” in the state, pitting them against much of the state's GOP leadership. Republican Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey and GOP Rep. Ann Bollin, chairwoman of the House Elections Committee, have both said Biden won the state, and a state GOP spokesperson said the party's formal position is that it is "not interested in relitigating the past."
Party leadership is reportedly concerned that obsessing over the 2020 election will further alienate suburban voters that they steadily lost to Democrats throughout Trump's tenure.
“We need to be focused on 2022 and 2024,” Jason Rowe, the state party’s executive director, told reporters last week.
But that position hasn't stopped GOP lawmakers from pushing for new voting laws. The Post writes:
Democratic Attorney General Nessel called it a "sad package of legislation" that seeks to both restrict access to the ballot box and "circumvent the results when the results are not in their favor.” Republicans are also trying to find a workaround that would circumvent a veto by Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
In short, even as Michigan GOP lawmakers attempt to distance themselves from Trump, they’re still trying to rig elections in their favor.